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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26655916">Marked for the Future</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nice_Valkyrie/pseuds/Nice_Valkyrie'>Nice_Valkyrie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood &amp; Manga</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Pre-Slash, Soulmate-Identifying Marks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:47:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,615</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26655916</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nice_Valkyrie/pseuds/Nice_Valkyrie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, Scar had wanted to find his soulmate. Now the prospect of finding anything feels impossibly far away.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tim Marcoh/Scar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Equivalent Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Marked for the Future</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koraki/gifts">Koraki</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I hope this scratches the itch for a first-words soulmark AU!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The public baths reeked of alchemy, that metallic zing in the air that always raised the hairs on the back of Scar’s arms. After he’d paid his entry, he made his way to the room at the end of the western hall. This room had three basins large enough for a half-dozen men each, but for now, it was deserted.</p><p>Scar took a seat at the basin opposite the doorway, beside the alchemical circles meant to control the water flow and temperature. He made no move to disrobe, however. He kept his dark glasses on and fixed his gaze on the doorway. One saw all manner of bodies in the baths, all colors of hair and skin and eyes, but not like his. Not like his.</p><p>Two fathers and their son, all nude, padded in and out of view, and Scar was suddenly overcome by a wave of nostalgia that rose thickly in his throat. </p><p>Ishvallan baths were still famous in the rest of the country as an example of the benefits of alchemy. They were inefficient and poorly designed. Book illustrations always showed mazes of overlapping gears, crowded tubs, cloudy water. <em>Look at all the trouble these people went to</em>, they seemed to say, <em>when they could have turned to alchemy instead!</em> </p><p>Scar remembered the baths differently. Gleaming pipes ran up and down all the tiled walls in neat and even beautiful lines. Ceramic well tanks held and heated the water pumped from beneath the earth. The mother pump system was clever, requiring only four men to operate, and was open and easy to clean of sediment. And each bath could be filled or emptied by only one man, one-handed. </p><p>Some pipes were hot to the touch, but not dangerously so. The children running through the steam-filled rooms were more at risk of slipping on the black-and-white tiles that adorned the floors in floral patterns. But there were always so many people around—so many families—that one could look away and enjoy catching up with old friends free of worry. In the evenings, olive oil lamps that burned without odor gave off a soft, warm light through textured glass.</p><p>Scar swallowed the bitter lump in his throat and began to unlace his boots. They were big, heavy things, and probably why the door attendant had given him such a funny look—such shoes tended to be caked in mud, which no worker wanted to mop up. These were clean, but wearing through in the soles, worn down from months of heavy use. Scar hadn’t found the time to purchase a replacement pair. Well, they would have to last a little longer.</p><p>He inspected the alchemical seals set into the edges of the basin. They were helpfully labeled, for those unfamiliar with alchemy; a little bell on the wall could be rung for further assistance. Scar felt a ripple of unease when he realized he could read the geometric designs as easily as any script. Which alchemist, he wondered, had come up with these particular circles? When had they received their state certification? And what use could they have had for the country in pursuit of violence?</p><p>Suddenly the metal in the air tasted rather more like blood.</p><p>Scar rang the bell. After a moment, an attendant came up to him. A different boy, this one thinner, with a lopsided smile. “Can I help you, sir?”</p><p>“Is there any scent for the water?”</p><p>“Of course. Lavender?”</p><p>“Please.”</p><p>The attendant loped away. While he was alone, Scar tugged his feet from their boots and socks and slipped them into the water. He kept his soles firmly planted on the floor. The script on his right foot was too small for anyone to read, but it was the pale gold color of all soulmarks, and no one’s business but his own.</p><p>The attendant returned with a small vial, which he placed on the edge of the basin. “I have another question,” said Scar. “Can the water be made colder?”</p><p>“Colder? Sure.” The attendant pointed at the alchemical seals. “This one does the temperature. Just activate it going south instead of north.” He stole an unsubtle glance at Scar, taking in the white hair and weathered hands. “...unless you wanted me to do it for you…?”</p><p>“Please.”</p><p>“Here,” said the attendant as the basin filled, “like a nice cool glass of beer.”</p><p>“I’d like it colder than that, if it’s possible.”</p><p>The attendant was looking at him again. “There’s nothing wrong with it,” he said, and his voice had flattened, withdrawn. His gaze darted suspiciously again to Scar’s hair before locking on his glasses, squinting.</p><p>A shiver of unease went down Scar’s neck. “I prefer to wash in cold water. That’s all.”</p><p>“Why are you still wearing those glasses in here, anyway?”</p><p>“I’m very sensitive to light.” Scar nodded at the white alchemical lanterns. But the attendant was unnerved. He stepped back, never taking his eyes off Scar. “If that’s all,” he said flatly. </p><p>What a relief it was when the boy left. Scar began to wash his left foot, scrubbing away the grime of a few days. It was always easier to be alone. Other people looked at him and saw things he did not want them to know. War-torn young men came back looking shell-shocked. His was a different sort of recorded atrocity. After the massacre, nobody would ever look at his face and ask who he was again. He bore his history on his face as clearly as…as his soulmark.</p><p>He began to wash his right foot.</p><p>The words inscribed there had once made Scar want to weep. Who knew how many times he would have to hear such a simple question and feel his heart skip in anticipation? It seemed to mock him even in childhood: for having a soulmark meant he could not become a priest, which had been his ambition at an early age. But the frustration, like most childish things, had waned with time. Scar had imagined meeting his soulmate, allowed himself to spin acutely personal fantasies. Where he had once felt angry, he began to feel peaceful, even hopeful.</p><p>The anger he felt now was different. The question of the soulmark seemed filled with venom. Perhaps it would kill him.</p><p>At six o’clock Hamish Schwarz, the Lacquer Alchemist, entered the baths. He came to the farthest room on the western hall, stripped naked, and began filling one of the other basins. He glanced once at Scar, but paid him no other attention; he was preoccupied with his routine, his own life.</p><p>Schwarz was out of the school of metallurgy, the largest branch of alchemical study. His specialty was purification; nothing extraordinary, but highly sought-after. The public files available on Schwarz indicated that he had pioneered a process of bonding thin layers of one metal to the surfaces of another, thereby reducing or even eliminating the potential for rust. Many of the details had been redacted.</p><p>There was much more information about Schwarz that was not available in those files. For example, after several afternoons of careful observation, Scar had noticed that one of Schwarz's legs was shorter than the other. It gave him a funny little walk, like he was always on the verge of breaking out into a run. He liked his bathwater scalding, and his pasty skin was quite pink by the time he was done washing. He had freckles.</p><p>In the war, Schwarz had worked support, not combat. But Scar had come to the conclusion that this distinction was ultimately meaningless. After all, the distinctions between soldiers and civilians, women and children, all of these had ceased to matter to Amestris; why should Scar have concerned himself with measures of guilt? Perhaps Schwarz had never set foot in Scar’s home himself, but he’d gilded the machines that helped destroy it.</p><hr/><p>In another life, Scar thought, this room would have been an excellent place in which to enjoy a sunset. He would have asked his uncle to design a glass window to capture the light and dash it brilliantly across the water. </p><p>And in that light Scar would have been nude. He would not have been alone. He would have lifted his foot from the water and the man who was his soulmate would have taken it and pressed his lips to the words that bound them together.</p><p>Some scars came from nature, others from beasts. Some were ordained from birth, the image one was made in. Scar had always thought he was made in god’s image. But in the massacre, another man had marked him instead.</p><p>Shouldn’t he be free to mark himself with the label <em>murderer?</em> An identity of his own choosing? </p><hr/><p>Scar was waiting outside when Schwarz finished his bath. The sun had nearly slipped below the horizon: the sky seemed to groan as it began to give way to dusk. Schwarz walked his funny walk down the road and turned the corner.</p><p>Scar followed.</p><p>If he could create himself as a murderer, then perhaps even the distinction between the holy and the unholy was gone. Man making man in his own image. Yes. Perhaps all gods and all men lived together in the same abject lowliness.</p><p>By the time they reached the deserted section of road, Schwarz had become aware that someone was following him. He stopped. Scar held back, hiding himself in a deepening shadow.</p><p>Was creation the only thing that separated man from god?</p><p>“Who are you?” Schwarz said loudly.</p><p>Or was it destruction?</p><p>Schwarz turned around. Scar reached for him.</p><p>In his mind, his faceless, nameless lover pressed a kiss to his marked foot. Scar crushed him beneath it.</p><p> </p>
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